Blackbird
by wild alyss
Summary: UPDATE 2013. In the annual Elite Academic Challenge, Spencer Academy is paired with the mysterious Emerald Academy. As the competition approaches the mystery surrounding the school and its students slowly unravels. Not all mysteries are meant to be solved. . . [REVISED FROM 2007/2009 VERISON]


**Disclaimer: **I don't own the Covenant, blah, blah, blah.

**Author's Note:** Notable revisions to this entire story. I am attempting to finish everything I ever started on this site years ago. Hopefully you'll all enjoy the new direction this story is going in. The plot has been tweaked a bit, but not too much from the original course. I've changed the name of some characters names.

Enjoy and I promise that this will be completed!

**Blackbird**

Prologue : _A Beacon For Death_

"to the elements it came from

everything will return

our bodies to earth

our blood to water

heart to fire

breath to air"

_-Empedocles on Edna (1852)_

"I was the second daughter of the second daughter. The child never meant to be born. And from that moment on, that was the only thing that mattered. I, Elizabeth Emmiline Sparrow V, would be the end of the great Sparrow line that had existed since the twelfth century. That has been my fate since I opened my eyes on the night of Samhain.

On the night of Samhain, where the veil between this world and the Otherworld grows weak, I was responsible for something terrible. I opened my eyes to the bright, white hospital lights. I awoke to the steady _beep, beep, beep_ of my heart, to the unfamiliar faces of hospital staff, and to my grandmother, the great Elizabeth Emmiline Sparrow IV, for whom I was named after. She asked the staff to leave us. She told me I my mother had died and that I was never to speak about what happened that night to anyone, ever.

I didn't remember what happened exactly. We were outside of my grandmother's house, eating spiced pumpkin cupcakes and watching the stars. I remember the stars shining brighter than I had ever seen before. I remember my mother laughing and pointing at shapes in the sky. I remember her suddenly stop laughing, her telling me to run inside and get my grandmother but I didn't move. Everything faded to black; a scream in the distance and the howl of the wind; then white, at the hospital with my grandmother and the nurses." Elizabeth Emmiline Sparrow V took a deep breath and continued on with her story.

"I think that's when I realized we were different. We were different, not just from the world, but from the others too. After Samhain, I saw less of Kale, Cassidy, Jay and Luke outside of school. I was so young and confused over what had happened that I didn't understand why my friends were taken away from me too. It wasn't until our freshman year at Emerald that we realized who, and what, we were. Cursed."

He listened to her, her words wrapping around the night air as they sat beneath the trees of the forest, palms dirty from the ground earth beneath them.

_four hours, fifty-six minutes, eight seconds_

"You are not cursed." His voice was soft and forgiving. His hand felt around the dirt for hers and grasped tightly.

"Oh but I am." Tears now falling freely down her tinted cheeks.

_four hours, forty-nine minutes, twenty-six seconds_

"Did Luke and the guys ever tell you how my mother met her untimely demise, Tyler? Did they?" Her voice no longer held the somber sadness, but an unearthed anger hidden far too long under her sad brown eyes. Tyler shook his head. Elizabeth laughed quietly her hand still firmly gripped in his and bowed her head.

"When I was six something happened to me. Something that changed everything we knew about our power." She paused, laughing again to herself. "That night my mother and I sat outside, enjoying the lingering warmth of the autumn air, when I ascended for the first time. I heard my mother scream and then I blacked out."

"It wasn't until the incident freshman year, that I discovered I was the reason my mother had died. She was protecting me from my own ascension." She took a staggering breath, continuing onward with her story.

Tyler sat there beside her, hand still firmly wrapped around hers. "You're not cursed, Libby. I said it before I'll say it again. There's a reason why we have these powers we just need to figure out what that reason is. Together."

"You're overly positive for someone who's going to possibly die in, four hours, twenty-eight minutes and five seconds." Her voice was quiet, yet he sensed the joking tone. Her final ascension was four hours away and they still didn't have a clue what was going to happen to her.

Tyler looked over at the girl beside him, her eyes and cheeks were red from crying and knew there was nothing he could say or do to make the situation magically disappear. He did the only thing he could think of. He pressed his lips against hers in a soft, slow kiss; in what he hoped wouldn't be their last.


End file.
